Why do Arsenal fans hate Spurs (and vice versa) do they remember the exact reason...
Rivalry between the two teams did not begin until 1913, when Arsenal moved from the Manor Ground, Plumstead to Arsenal Stadium, Highbury, just four miles from Tottenham's White Hart Lane; by doing so, they became Tottenham's nearest neighbours and thus began a natural local rivalry. The two teams first faced each other as "north London" clubs (although Tottenham was actually in Middlesex until incorporated into Greater London in 1965) in a War Relief Fund friendly on August 22, 1914 at White Hart Lane; although Arsenal were in the Second Division and Tottenham in the First, Arsenal won 5-1.[3] They would go on to meet regularly during World War I in the London Combination, the regional wartime competition of the time.
The rivalry escalated in 1919 when the First Division was to be expanded by two teams. 19th-placed Chelsea, who would otherwise have been relegated, were allowed to stay and thus took one of the places. The final place could have been awarded to 20th-placed Tottenham, or Barnsley, who had finished 3rd in the Second Division, but both missed out. Instead it was decided by eighteen votes to eight that Arsenal would be promoted, despite their only finishing 6th in Division Two - although an error in the calculation of goal average meant Arsenal had actually finished fifth, an error which was corrected by the Football League in 1975.
It has been frequently alleged that Arsenal chairman Sir Henry Norris used underhand dealings in order to bring this about, although nothing has been proven.[4] The decision infuriated Tottenham and their supporters, even though eleven years previously, Tottenham themselves had been elected to join the Football League Second Division despite only finishing 7th in the 1907-08 Southern League, at the expense of Southern League champions Queen's Park Rangers, who had also applied.[5]
Despite the setback, Tottenham were soon promoted back into the top flight after taking the 1919-20 Second Division title,[6] and the derby was once again regularly contested. The first fully competitive derby match after Arsenal's 1913 move to North London was a First Division match that finished 2-1 to Tottenham, on January 15, 1921 at White Hart Lane. The early matches between the two were noted for their bitterness - a particularly vicious match in September 1922 led to two sendings-off and both clubs being censured by the Football Association and threatened with being forced to play behind closed doors.[7]
Tottenham played in the Second Division between 1928 and 1933, and 1935 and 1950,[6] which naturally led to a drop in the number of matches between the two clubs in this period and a cooling of passions. Relations between the two clubs improved somewhat after the Second World War, after Tottenham allowed Arsenal to play their home matches at White Hart Lane while Highbury was requisitioned as an ARP station and subsequently bombed.
Since 1950 there has only been one season (1977-78[6]) where Spurs and Arsenal have not been in the same division, meaning fixtures between the two are regular and this has maintained the rivalry to the present day; there have been many notable matches where the course of a title or the journey to a cup final has relied on the outcome of a derby match. As with most major football rivalries, there is much banter and gloating between the two sets of fans, many of whom work and even live together, and players who transfer between the two teams receive a bad reception from their former fans; the most recent example was defender Sol Campbell, who was nicknamed "Judas" by Spurs fans after he crossed the divide in 2001.
